Lower Deck Build

Problem: Tree house is very high and trap door overhangs fence.

Solution: Construct a lower deck which will provide a higher elevation for which to build a two face stair way up into the tree house.

Recycle old telegraph pole, 4 lengths of 2.5m

Concrete ingredients 

Posts set in

Mum showing cows how to put the concrete in

Job done, now to let it dry!

Roofing

Up cycling some old tin from a hay shed. Plenty of life still left in some of the sheets. Blizzard proof membrane under the purlins for an extra bit of weather proofing.

Bunter showing off his harness skills!

JCB is in the hospital, so the cherry picker was put on the Tractor loader which actually lifts a little higher but the lack of self leveling makes it not just as handy.

The Purlins did actually go on straight! I screwed in one side and then adjusted the others to be parallel. 

All done! The roof turned out great, took quite a bit of time as there was a fair bit of grinder work to cut the tin to fit round the old oak tree.

Cladding the walls

After painting the whole structure with wood preservative, a weatherproof membrane was added to the outside.

The next stage was to add timber cladding to the walls.

Christmas Update

With a few days off work over Christmas and the new year the tree house saw a bit more progress. Most of the tricky/time consuming stuff (framing and roof rafters) is now all out of the way so things should come together pretty quickly now.

I had made up the main door for out onto the balcony and on showing Tom, he said it wasn't what he had pictured. His imagination was for a stable door or "horsey door" as he described it, not to be one to disappoint I pulled out the saw and made that happen. As you can see he is pleased with the result.

Roof Rafters finished

My JCB was sick over Christmas so the cherry picker box made its way onto the Massey. Definitely an invaluable tool when working on something like this.

Expert at the birds mouth cut after all this..

Mezzanine floor

Sonia helping put the floor in place.

A door way

This weekend saw as little bit of progress on the front structure. The door frame is in place along with the wall frame and upper roof space area that will be accessible from inside the tree house.

Tree house in a Storm

Weathering the Storm

Sunday the 5th of October saw the first of the winter storms arrive. The tree house in its unfinished state thankfully weathered it which is testament to the construction so far. 

I picked up the 2x4's which will complete the roof beans and add extra structural strength. Hopefully some progress will be made this weekend. 

I will hopefully have some constructive updates after this weekend with some progress. It would certainly be a good idea to get it weather tight as soon as possible before more bad weather sets in.

4 Walls!

The walls were fabricated on the ground making it easier to ensure that they were perfectly square. 2x2 used for the wall frames should be strong and light enough for what we want.

6mm external grade ply used for the walls. No requirement for anything heavier than this!

Rab stops by to run an engineers eye over the whole thing. I hope DFR is not a term he uses everyday when he is in work. (Rab works in the aerospace industry and DFR stands for Do Fucking Rightly!)

Front balcony section in place. Handrail height set to 1m which should be sufficient to stop anyone falling out. Bringing along Tom to the builders merchants to get discount on materials proved a good idea. There were a couple of lengths of handrail that were less favourable for the majority of peoples jobs but when Tom asked could he get special discount for the tree house the supplier couldn't say no!

Bunter not doing as he is told!

The side walls also include a balcony section

The walls are bolted to the uprights that were put in place during the previous phase

After the third wall was installed the trap door had to be cut prior to the fourth wall being bolted into place.